Paying the Price: Patch 7.2.5 tuning to compensate for the extra Dire Beast charge (updated)

Yes, we’re all excited about the changes coming next patch… but you didn’t think it would come without a price, did you? The first round of tuning is in, and Blizzard maybe overestimated how much 2 Dire Beast charges is worth in terms of DPS. They also nerfed the T20 bonuses to the point where you’ll want to wear T19 instead.

Trait nerfs

  • Pack Leader now gives 3% Kill Command damage per point instead of 5%. So if you currently have 4 points, it’s been nerfed from 20% to 12% Kill Command damage.
  • Jaws of Thunder now has an 8% chance per point (down from 10%). So if you had 4 points, it’s been nerfed from 40% to 32%.

I think these nerfs are a bit strong, but there is some silver lining: It will make more relic drops viable. These traits will probably still be the best, but not to the point where you’d take a massive ilevel nerf to use them. I’ve trashed or passed on way too many relics because of this.

My advice? Start trying to acquire high ilevel relics that have current mid-tier traits like Unleash the Beast, Spitting Cobras, Wilderness Expert, and Furious Swipes. Especially if they’re higher level than your current Kill Command relics. Don’t throw anything away.

This really sucks for anyone who has recently passed on future upgrades due to this change, or even overwritten existing relics.

T20 set bonuses

  • The 2-piece bonus now increases the damage bonus of Bestial Wrath by 1% every time you cast Kill Command, Cobra Shot, or Multi-Shot (nerfed from 1.5%).
  • The 4-piece bonus now increases the damage of Kill Command, Cobra Shot, and Multi-Shot by 10% during Bestial Wrath (down from 20%).

Yikes. Any BM Hunter would want to keep using T19 even with T20 available to them, especially if they have Mythic pieces or high titanforges from other difficulties.

The 2-piece was already kind of mediocre, definitely not worth breaking your old 4-piece for. It’s probably going to average out to a 5-6% increase to damage during Bestial Wrath.

The 4-piece nerf is hilariously bad. It’s no better than the current T19 2-piece (for Dire Frenzy at least) which increases your main pet’s damage by 10% during Bestial Wrath.

Item level upgrades will ensure they’re an upgrade eventually, but in a world of Titanforging it’s not that simple. Blizzard has to make the new set bonuses at least equal to the old in terms of throughput. Right now they are not.

The new Mantle of Command effect

Since 2 charges is now baseline, The Mantle of Command now increases the Wild Call proc chance by an additional 20%. So it’s 40% when using the shoulders, and 70% when using the One with the Pack talent.

I am cautiously optimistic about this, mainly because it gives me some hope for a competitive crit build in 7.2.5. I haven’t tried any of this yet though.

If the T20 set bonuses don’t get improved, the shoulders will likely not be an option because it will be absolutely essential to have that third set bonus (either 4p T19 + 2p T20, or 2p T19 + 4p T20).

Chimaera Shot

Oh yeah, that thing. It still exists. It got part buffed, part nerfed in this build. Its damage was slightly more than doubled, but its cooldown was increased from 9 to 15 seconds. Slightly better, but needs to be better than that to compete with Dire Frenzy and Stomp IMO. Try again, Blizzard.  😉

Paying the price

Our gameplay is going to improve, but at the cost of damage (at least if things stay as is). I totally agree there had to be some sort of compensatory nerf for getting 2 charges, but I’m not sure this hits the mark.

Once we can do some further testing (and when sim craft gets updated) we can investigate the true consequences here. There’s certainly nothing to panic over though. This is just Blizzard’s first dart in the board.

I will update with testing and sim results in the future.

Update: Keep in mind this is just a first impression, but I played with this on the PTR for a bit after raid tonight and have to say the DPS nerf isn’t as bad as it seems. It’s pretty darn close to what it was, but that’s just some quick feelycraft. We’ll see what the sims say. Dummy tests were fairly positive though!

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40 thoughts on “Paying the Price: Patch 7.2.5 tuning to compensate for the extra Dire Beast charge (updated)”

  1. Damn was afraid this was gonna happem, feel specially bad since I had the shoulders already so I dont feel like im gaining in terms of what I am losing

  2. @ Chris

    It’s a toy that lets you look like a Warden for a while…so not an actual armor set. The weapon is the BM tower challenge skin and has had the green recolour unlocked by killing every legion dungeon boss with the original challenge skin equipped.

  3. @ bow Did you forget the HUGE buff we just got (baseline 2 charge of dire beast/frenzy)? It is literally the first interation of number passing. Let’s wait a sec before proclaiming the sky is falling.

    1. Give it a try on PTR. Belt/ring and belt/bracers+CoF look like good combos so far. Also experimenting with some crit builds using one with the pack and shoulders (soooo many procs).

      1. staying at current ST spec using Belt/Ring are very strong now. Bracer+CoF are only gd if the ilvl of CoF are higher than 900

        1. @Chris: C’mon, we have only ONE ring 😉 (The Apex Predator’s Claw)

          @topic: Yeah it’s a harder nerf than we deserve… but please(!) give it a try, at least on PTR, but even on live servers. We should not cry now about something that is not yet implemented and right now not much more than a mindgame.

  4. The relic nerf is the hardest to swallow, because that retroactively impacts gear choices. I’ve gotten rid of PLENTY of high-ilvl mid-tier relics because BM is so trait dependent. I’m all for… ok, I’m not all for, but I understand ability tuning, or tuning gear we don’t have yet. Major relic tuning is kinda underhanded.

  5. Quick question: I heard that on PTR that Dire Frenzy was only giving 12 focus now (same as beast) instead of the 25. Didn’t see you mention it here. Can someone check that real quick?

    1. 7.2.5 Build 23993
      – Dire Frenzy (1 Charge) : Generates 12 Focus every 8 seconds.

      7.2.5 Build 24026
      – Dire Frenzy (2 Charges): Generates 24 Focus every 8 seconds.

      I guess they changed it. Nice.

  6. Cool, thanks. I guess they changed it for a bit and immediately reverted it. It’s actually great that it’s over time now instead of instant for DF as well, less chance of overcapping focus and raises the skillcap a touch.

    I still (personally) like Stomp better (Glyph of Arachophobia is amazing lol), but it’s too far behind right now unfortunately.

  7. I knew this was gonna happen. When Blizzard giveth they very quickly taketh away.
    At least BM isn’t gonna become a flavour of the month spec. That always results in big nerfs.

    1. “When Blizzard giveth they very quickly taketh away.”

      QFT!

      I should have trademarked that when I said it on the WoW Hunter forum :p It was bound to happen but hey, it could have been worse, had the initial proposed changed stuck.

  8. They just upped the T20 2pc back to the original 1.5% and upped the 4pc to 15% and they’re nerfing T19 4pc to 4 seconds from it’s original 8 seconds on the PTR so looks like maybe trying to discourage us from keeping the T19 4p for DPS reasons

    1. So rather than trying to give us something we want, they force us to take what they give by further nerfing what we have.

      Blizz logic at work…

      At launch, this is going to be brutal. At least, ’til we can get 4 pieces.

  9. This makes sense when you actually think about it. Getting a baseline update that previously was only available to those with a RARE awesome item, that’d throw the entire baseline spec out of balance right? So you HAVE to nerf it down otherwise. Then you get a new upgrade to that updated legendary item to keep the lucky ones where they are, elevated above the base spec.

  10. nerfing what? mid-performer class… i just completed fast NH HC run… there where 5 hunters – unfortunatelly deamonhunters – and they took first 5 spots almost at every fight…

  11. Hey Bendak, you tried the new PTR build?

    It looks like they totally hammered the shoulders into the ground (5% pet damage for 8s after DB/DF), so it’s basically just 800-ish mastery with 80% uptime now. 🙁

    Prydaz is almost certainly better than that, and even simple overstatted other ones like roots or voodoo mask might be too.

    Getting Stable might be good though, depending on how understatted that ring is (which I don’t know).

    1. The Apex Predator’s Claw 5% pet damage all the time and all pet skills.
      so Blizz lets do the shoulders 5% with 80% uptime, makes sense>

      1. The difference is the ring only applies 5% to your main pet, while the shoulders also apply to dire beasts, Hati, and A Murder of Crows.

    2. Whether or not Prydaz is better depends on your existing neck piece. For me the shoulders are still better (in both sims and ptr testing). Ultimately all the BM legendaries are quite close now, with the exception of the belt which is something you’ll always want. The shoulders will soon become irrelevant though because you’ll want to do 4p T20 + 2p T19.

      I’ll have to do another post soon about the shoulders, the set bonus situation, and the bestial wrath nerfs.

      1. Yes please that’s what I’ve been waiting for. Shoulders seem very mediocre after changes. Have you run bracers and belt? I hear that’s pretty good too with CoF.

      2. What is the math of the boots vs the belt? An extra KC in BW vs the reduced cool down with the boots/dire beast, especially with the baseline 2 charges makes the boots seem more beneficial but maths are not my greatest strengths.

    1. Got a post coming soon about that (and other 7.2.5 stuff). I think it’s going to be pretty solid because a 970 chest piece is a crapton of stats, plus 4% damage on everything is quite good. Only thing going against it is that it prevents you from using 3 set bonuses.

  12. As Brann Bronzebeard says, ‘Keep yer eyes on th’ horizon.’ Always remember that piece of advice, brother.

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